#1 · Jun 19, 2011 13:15 UTC
A couple of years ago I bought an Eric Clapton Signature strat off Ebay. It was a good deal and the guitar is an amazing bit of gear, very versatile. I subsequently relegated my faithful old 74 strat to well earned semi- retirement. The more I played the EC strat the more the shortcomings of my old guitar became obvious especially in the high gain territory. But there was a certain overall strat tone that I could not achieve with the EC, believe it or not. So recently I decided to embark on a new adventure: I would refurbish the old 74 with all new electronics. To cut to the chase, I bought a set of Jeff Beck noiseless pickups from fender as well as a new 5 way pickup selector, volume pot, 2 TBX tone pots and a tortoise shell scratch plate. I already had a new set of nobs in parchment that matched the pickup covers on the JB pickups. So by just unsoldering 3 wires I could completely change the look and sound of my old strat but a change that was easily reversed if need be. The strat came from the factory with what is known as a walnut colour with a black scratch plate, a very 70's colour scheme. I was never 100% happy with the look but loved the feel and weight of the guitar ( it's very light). The upgrade gave me a noiseless guitar with a better than original tone. I am a fan of the TDX tone control, it being standard on the EC strat. It gives you a lot more option than just your standard tone control. But the more I play this guitar the more I love these pickups: they are brilliant! The look is now much more to my liking. One word of advice. The pickups have what looks like another shallow pickup underneath the the actual pickup and so they are about 10mm higher/thicker than a standard strat pickup. As a consequence I could not lower them down far enough into the guitar to properly clear the strings as they bottomed out into the body cavity. Initially I could only see one option: routing out the body. Out of the question! Then I considered this strat's much maligned tilt neck adjustment. Perfect answer. It allowed me to angle the neck back so I could raise up the bridge saddles without loosing my action but allow me to get my strings away from the pickups so that the pickup magnets were not affecting the string vibration. Of course this option is not available to anyone with an original 4 bolt neck setup.